Chapter 60 of 78

ATLANTIS.

I.

I could loose my boat,

And could bid it float

Where the idlest wind should pilot,

So its glad course lay

From this earth away,

Towards any untrodden islet.

II.

For this earth is old,

And its heart is cold,

And the palsy of age has bound it;

And my spirit frets

For the viewless nets

Which are hourly clinging round it.

III.

And with joyful glee

We have heard of thee,

Thou Isle in mid ocean sleeping;

And thy records old,

Which the Sage has told,

How the Memphian tombs are keeping.

IV.

But we know not where,

’Neath the desert air,

To look for the pleasant places

Of the youth of Time,

Whose austerer prime

The haunts of his childhood effaces.

V.

Like the golden flowers

Of the western bowers,

Have waned their immortal shadows;

And no harp may tell

Where the asphodel

Clad in light those Elysian meadows.

VI.

And thou, fairest Isle

In the daylight’s smile,

Hast thou sunk in the boiling ocean,

While beyond thy strand

Rose a mightier land

From the wave in alternate motion?

VII.

Are the isles that stud

The Atlantic flood,

But the peaks of thy tallest mountains,

While repose below

The great water’s flow

Thy towns and thy towers and fountains?

VIII.

Have the Ocean powers

Made their quiet bowers,

In thy fanes and thy dim recesses?

Or in haunts of thine

Do the sea-maids twine

Coral wreaths for their dewy tresses?

IX.

Or does foot not fall

In deserted hall,

Choked with wrecks that ne’er won their haven,

By the ebb trailed o’er

Thy untrampled floor,

Which their sunken wealth has paven?

X.

Oh, appear! appear!

Not as when thy spear

Ruled as far as the broad Egean,

But in Love’s own might,

And in Freedom’s right,

Till the nations uplift their Pæan,

XI.

Who now watch and weep,

And their vigil keep,

Till they faint for expectation;

Till their dim eyes shape

Temple tower and cape

From the cloud and the exhalation.

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